"I think the rest of the ninety nine point nine percent of the population can live just fine without it."

"For like a century at most."

"Good point, yes."

"Magic deficiency is one of the leading causes of death and one we shall of course eliminate."

"Yes we shall. Lucky of us to be alive right now."

"Lucky for everyone else."

"I expect other people than us would look into solving this problem if we didn't exist. Maybe not right now but soon enough, magic is getting more attractive as an option."

"Well, that's true, but like--I dunno about you, but if I'd had to pick between lockdown and starving in the wilderness for a couple of years, I'd've picked the wilderness, we were going to live forever regardless of when, it's just that with virtuality it's scalable."

He barely noticeably flinches when she mentions starving in the wilderness but then proceeds as if nothing'd happened, "Yeah, that's what I mean. Although I think given that we were going to live forever regardless of when, it might actually have been better if we'd been born way earlier. Maybe."

"I'm just as happy not to have had to deal with an ingrained cultural assumption that Edie and I must be subs, but I see your point."

"Ah, yeah, that. I wonder how I'd be taken, what with the gendershifting and such."

"A fairy," she suggests, "out of Dream Eclipse or something like that."

"Oooh I like that idea."

"I thought you might."

"Maybe they'd even agree that if anyone was a switch I would be. For the wrong reasons, but still."

Shrug. "I'm just as glad to sidestep the whole issue."

"Yeah," he says, somewhat uncomfortable.

"...You okay?"

"We haven't really sidestepped the issue, have we? Even when I'm presenting more submissive as a boy people mostly expect me to be a dom and then act weirded out—well, not here, much, Selene is pretty great, but."

"That pretty much doesn't happen to me. On the other hand, I grew up in New York State, which is kind of a bastion of liberalness--where are you from?"

"Texas, but when I was small my mom and I moved to California so I never really got the accent, and then when she died I moved back with my father."

"I'm sorry."

He shrugs. "It was a long time ago. But thank you."

"I guess Texas might explain the thing, though, I've heard...right-wing...things about Texas."

He laughs. "Right-wing things sounds right."